


When We're Older

by so_freaking_tired



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Cute, F/M, Family, Fluff, Kind of emo, Mild Smut, Modern AU, arya is 16, entire squad is in this, gendry is 18, if you wanted good writing go somewhere else, just putting that out there, slight angst, unedited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-20 08:40:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19373176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/so_freaking_tired/pseuds/so_freaking_tired
Summary: Gendry is lucky to know the Starks. Robb and Jon are his best friends, and the rest of the family treats him as their own. Unfortunately, Arya has never seemed to like him. Until she's a sophomore and he's a senior, and the two of them grow closer, finally realizing what made it so hard for them to be friends all those years. But with Arya so much younger than him and Gendry leaving for college soon, is falling in love even a possibility?





	1. chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hello again,  
> so a) i didn't edit this, it's really bad and i wrote lowkey smut (barely but still) in the middle and it freaks me out so please just ignore that and b) i am VERY SENSITIVE about relationships where the age of consent is concerned. this is based on my friend's relationship (basically an exact retelling but with Gendrya) and if it weirds anyone out i'm super sorry. i myself have never been in a relationship so it's weird writing this stuff, but here i am.  
> other than that, please enjoy and tell me what you think!  
> also, my tumblr is so-freaking-tired, so follow me there :)  
> p.s. sorry the format is WACK AF i hate ao3  
> p.p.s I MADE SOME EDITS. some of you may have read one version, some another. I AM BREAKING THIS INTO 2 CHAPTERS. it was just too long to be one. i received some really good constructive criticism and decided to build a lot more on some parts so i'm breaking it up. THANKS FOR UNDERSTANDING xoxo  
> ~ laura

Gendry didn’t like to whine about his misfortunes. And he hated pity. There was no feeling worse than someone feeling sorry for him and becoming his friend to make him “feel better” about being an orphan or being poor. 

But he was undeniably lucky to know the Starks. 

Since he, Jon, and Robb had been on the same basketball team since freshmen year, he’d found a companion in the two of them (and Theon, though Gendry sometimes frowned at his crude jokes and player personality). He went home with them nearly every day after school – they provided him a quiet space to do homework, a table to eat at, and friends to fuck around with. He utilized their garage to help feed his passion for fixing bikes and cars. They let him sleep over whenever he needed to be away from the orphanage. 

They were his best friends – his family. Their father, Ned, checked in on him about his grades and extracurriculars. Their mother, Catelyn, doted over him like he was her own son. Sansa shouted at him like he was her brother. Bran didn’t talk to him (but Bran was just… different. He didn’t talk to anyone). Rickon looked up to him.   
The only one who didn’t feel like his sibling was Arya. 

She was always hesitant to let him into her life – she shut him out for the first three years they knew each other, seemingly disinterested in knowing him at all. Their first encounter had been towards the end of Gendry’s freshman year, when he first started coming to the Stark’s mansion daily. He’d been in Robb’s room, toying with a rubix cube as Robb watched some TV show on his computer. 

He heard a loud slam and jumped, looking up to see that a very short, brown-haired seventh grader had burst through the door with fire in her eyes. She scanned the room and her brown eyes narrowed as she saw something on the end of Robb’s bed. She stormed through the room and picked up a red hardcover book. 

“Could you stop taking my shit?” she asked venomously. Robb looked up at her dully, like his little sister burst into his room in a rage every other day. And, Gendry assumed (having never had any real siblings of his own), that might have been the case. 

“Sorry, I wanted to read it. And it’s a library book, so it’s technically not yours…” 

“Shut up,” she scowled at him, “Don’t go in my room again.” She slammed the door behind her and Robb rolled his eyes. 

“Sorry about her, she’s kind of… a lot.” 

Gendry had heard Robb and Jon’s stories about Arya. Robb mostly told the negative ones, how she lit her schoolbooks on fire at the end of each schoolyear and how she punched a boy who tried to kiss her at a school dance. Jon seemed to adore her and told Gendry how she was talented at karate and fencing and could wrestle even six-foot-tall Robb to the ground by the time she was twelve. 

“You’ll like Sansa better,” Robb promised Gendry, “She’s a grade below you. I’ve shown her pictures of you, I think she likes you already.” He chuckled and Gendry blushed. 

Sansa’s crush hadn’t lasted long – maybe a month. Soon she began to treat him like her brothers, and Gendry found that she could be almost as frightening as Arya when she was angry. 

It took a long time for Arya to warm up to Gendry. It wasn’t until the summer before her sophomore year that they really began to become friends. 

Something had changed about her since the summer before – her erratic, frightening behavior had evened out and translated into a more bold, sarcastic humor that made her more pleasant to be around. She and Gendry in fact had a lot in common – they read the same kinds of books and enjoyed adventurous eating. Sometimes he’d take her to sushi restaurants that Robb and Jon were too picky to try. 

She also liked watching him work in the garage. She sat on his worktable and watched his legs peek out from underneath cars, humming along with the music he’d chosen (which often was one of her playlists – they happened to share a music taste as well). 

When he gave himself cuts, she’d fetch him bandaids. One day while she unwrapped a bandage for him, she smirked at his bleeding injury.

“Maybe you should get yourself a girlfriend to take care of you,” she joked, “you clearly can’t take care of yourself.”

Gendry had never thought about it – a girlfriend. He almost felt like he had one. He made playlists for Arya, took her to dinner, argued with her when she watched ahead in TV shows they were binging together. All they didn’t do was the intimate stuff. 

“Maybe I should,” he joked right back, and that was that. 

Gendry sometimes forgot that he couldn’t actually live with the Starks. Despite all their sleepovers, he still spent most nights at the orphanage. His foster families were few and far between, and they never lasted long. No one liked fostering teenagers. 

He had friends there, sure, but he stayed quiet and kept to himself. It just wasn’t the same as when he got to pick friends for himself, not be forced to live with people he wasn’t even related to. 

He couldn’t wait to get to college. Finally feel like a normal kid. 

It was Gendry’s eighteenth birthday and he was ecstatic. Eighteen was a big age for many reasons – it meant that he could move out of the orphanage soon, that he could (legally) buy cigarettes, and also that he was graduating high school the following year. Once he went to college, he could leave his miserable life behind and truly go places. 

He decided to spend his day at the Starks’ house, naturally, happy that it was a warm August day that promised time spent later in the afternoon at the lake and then at the campfire roasting hotdogs and marshmallows. He punched the code into their gate and made his way into their perfectly landscaped front yard, knocking on their red door and shoving his hands in his pockets to await an answer. 

It was Arya who swung open the door, Arya who’d filled out from being a lanky, boyish girl and become rather beautiful, with a round face and pretty dark hair that she usually pulled back to show her glistening gold-speckled eyes and freckled face. She grinned at him brightly and threw herself into his arms. 

“Happy birthday,” she said as he held her there, wondering why he was blushing. “Eighteen. Fuck, I can’t believe it,” she continued as he released her. She looked him up and down. “I just can’t believe I’m still fifteen. I feel like we’re the same age.”

He swallowed hard. “Yeah,” he responded, “You’re basically as mature as me.” 

“I don’t know if that’s a compliment or an insult,” she joked, moving aside to let him in. 

Jon ran to greet him, and so did Robb, wearing a polo and khakis like the college frat boy he now was. Sansa hugged him and Gendry strangely didn’t feel anything odd. 

As the rest of the Starks wished him happy birthday, his gaze kept returning to Arya, standing a ways away from her family and watching them take turns clapping him on the back or hugging him, wearing a blue tank top and shorts. She had sunglasses propped up on her head and a thin chain around her neck with a wolf charm that she hadn’t taken off since Jon got it for her on her fifteenth birthday. 

As the weather promised, the kids (now teens, really) spent the day at the lake by their house, splashing each other and basking in the summer sun. Robb and Theon would be returning to university in just a couple weeks, and both Jon and Gendry were beginning their final year in high school. Rickon was a year away from high school. Everyone was growing up so fast, Gendry realized, and he had the sinking feeling that soon he’d be seeing much less of the Starks.

He found himself sitting on the bank of the lake pondering this as the sun set over the sight of his family wading around the lake. He barely heard Arya come up behind him and sit close by his side. 

“Will you… still talk to me, when you’re in college?” she asked. He know she hadn’t meant to, and had probably actively tried not to, but her question sounded almost desperate. He looked at her. 

“Of course I will. Why would you even ask that?” He wanted to laugh at her and shove his shoulder against hers like she would’ve if he had asked a question like that, but Arya was seldom solemn, and she seemed very serious in this moment. 

“I just feel like Robb and Jon were your friends. Are your friends. Not me.” She said, staring down at her bare feet as water droplets traveled from the tips of her hair and dripped down her legs. She shivered. 

Gendry put his arm around her and pulled her close to him. “You are my friend. Jon and Robb are like my brothers… you’re…” 

“Like your sister?” Arya asked. She sounded miserable. 

“No,” Gendry said truthfully, “you’re… different. We’re friends.” 

“Are you sure?” she asked softly. Her cheek was pressed into his arm. 

“Yes, I’m very sure. There’s something about you, I can’t place it,” he continued, his brain shouting at him to stop. But his lips kept moving. “You aren’t like my sister. That’s… that’s not you. You’re just… my friends’ sister. And my friend. I don’t think I’ve ever considered the idea of you being like a sibling to me. It feels wrong.”   
She seemed to smile at this, even though Gendry was convinced what he’d said was nonsense. But he was being truthful – she wasn’t like his sister. It gave him a sick feeling inside to think of her that way. Especially when he thought of her in such vastly different circumstances. 

Later that night, in his room at the orphanage, he thought about her again, her cheek pressed to his arm. He thought about her as he closed his eyes and touched himself. He thought about her looking up at him with those eyes from between his legs. He thought about kissing her, on her lips and her shoulder and her thighs. And he knew what she was – the “something” she was to him – his friends’ sister, yes, but also his friends’ sister that he’d always been in love with. 

 

Throughout the school year, he treated Arya like a friend and she reciprocated. They studied in the library together at lunch and he helped her through the classes he’d already taken. She read over his college applications and edited his essays. She was quite good at English. He had his basketball friends to eat lunch with and she had her drama club friends, and her activism club friends, and her slam poetry club friends, and her friends from all the other thousands of clubs she seemed to have joined that year. 

Arya had a lot of friends – it almost made Gendry envious watching so many people be able to spend time with her with no questions asked. But he was glad she had such a bustling social circle. She deserved to be as popular as she was. Popular, yes, and possibly a little feared – he’d heard rumors about her scaring a boy out of school who tried to spread around her friend’s nudes. When he’d asked if it were true, she just winked. 

“You are Arya are getting close,” Robb observed one day in the hallways after Arya had shot Gendry a wave and Robb the finger. “She’s actually decent to you now.”

“She’s really fun if you give her the chance,” Gendry insisted.

“You don’t live with her,” Robb responded with a huff. “You’re just her fake brother.”

Gendry chuckled but he didn’t know how to respond. He didn’t want to be her brother. 

The only person who he felt he could talk to about it was his friend Hot Pie. They both grew up in the foster system but Hot Pie had been adopted years back. They still got lunch every so often, and every time they met up Gendry couldn’t help but spill about his frustrations with Arya. 

“You clearly like her a lot,” Hot Pie told him one day, “so ask her out.”

“I can’t, for a thousand reasons.” Gendry said miserably. 

“Like what?”

“Well, she’s two grades below me. People would talk. She’s my best mates’ sister. I’d probably never be invited back to the Starks’ house. I can’t risk that, their house is my only escape.”

“Then don’t ask her out,” Hot Pie decided, “try and forget about it. Find a different girl to fall in love with you. It’s probably pretty easy, look at you.”

Gendry shoved him. Maybe Hot Pie was right. He should just stop whining about his crush and find someone he could actually be with. Easier said than done.  
Instead of thinking about her at night, holding her hand and kissing her neck, he decided to focus on just being a good friend. It was hard to not stare at her ass sometimes, but he tried. They continued their normal routine of study sessions, movie nights, and dinner “dates”. 

He walked her home sometimes when Jon wanted to stay and make out with his girlfriend Daenerys and Sansa had play rehearsal. One cold afternoon in December, not long before Christmas break and shortly after Gendry and Jon had submitted their college applications, Gendry was walking Arya home while a soft snowfall began around them. 

“Snow,” Gendry said, pointing up at the white flakes. Arya nodded. Her cheeks were red from the cold over her pale skin and she was rubbing her gloved hands together, pushing her face down lower into her scarf. She was biting her bottom lip as if she were thinking. “Penny for your thoughts?”

She looked up at him and seemed to be contemplating something. She finally burst out, “Okay, but it’s a secret. You can’t tell anyone, okay?” she held her pinky out and they linked their fingers together. 

“Promise,” Gendry said. Arya grinned. 

“I was on Sansa’s phone the other day using the Find My iPhone thing, because Rickon had hidden it somewhere, and I was downstairs looking around for it and she got a text from Theon. So naturally I had to look.” Gendry nodded for her to go on. Arya lowered her voice. “They’re dating, Gendry. And he wasn’t texting all bitchy and annoying like he does on our groupchat, he was being… sweet.” She shuddered. “It was really weird.” 

“That’s wild,” Gendry responded. He couldn’t imagine Theon of all people being a conscious, loyal boyfriend. “How long have they been together?” 

“Not sure, but I think a while, because they end conversations with “I love you” and Sansa isn’t really that casual with those words.”

Gendry looked down at the pavement, which now had a paper-thin layer of snow that turned to slush under his boots. “That’s crazy.”

Arya nodded. She waited a minute then spoke again.

“Do you think that’s weird?”

“That Theon can be a good partner? Yes, kind of.” Gendry chuckled. Arya laughed too, her beautiful laugh, high and sharp, but then stopped and shook her head.   
“Not that… I mean, do you think it’s weird that she’s a junior in high school and he’s a freshman in college?” She seemed to be searching for something deeper with this question, judging by the way she looked at him so expectantly. 

“No, not really,” Gendry said truthfully, “I mean, she’s seventeen and he’s only nineteen. It’s a two-year age difference. That isn’t much at all.” 

He could see Arya smile from his side. He couldn’t help but smile too. 

“Yeah, that makes sense.” She responded. 

She waited again for two minutes this time. 

“So, my birthday is coming up,” she stated. He grinned at her. 

“Yeah? You want something special?” 

She bit her lip. “Kind of.” She didn’t say any more on the topic, but changed the subject. “Are you getting me anything?”

“I don’t know,” he sighed, “I don’t know if you deserve it.” 

She huffed. “Oh come on, I’ve been such a good friend all these years.”

“Lies! You didn’t even talk to me until last year. It was like you were afraid of me or something.”

“Was not!” she protested loudly. 

“Were too. Why else would you avoid me? Big, scary friend of your older brothers, over a foot taller than you…”

Arya moved in front of him and stopped so their chests touched. Gendry suddenly blushed as he looked down at her glaring up at him. 

“I. Was not. Afraid.” She hissed, and shoved him into a bush. She began to walk away and Gendry laughed loudly, pulling himself up and running to catch up. 

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” he apologized, breathless from laughter. “You probably just didn’t talk to me because I wasn’t worth your time. You’re way too cool for me.”

Arya smiled. “That’s better.”


	2. chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arya's birthday rolls around and Gendry has more feelings about her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi all,  
> chapter 2! my first chapter story! anyways, hope you enjoy this :) tried to add in some of the advice i got into the first chapter but as of right now i'm really lazy so this is pretty much the same as it was when it was part of chapter 1.   
> thanks for reading! comment below your thoughts, i love to hear what you all have to say!  
> ~ laura

When Arya’s birthday rolled around, it was still freezing outside. However, Sansa still managed to find an ice-cream cake (her favorite) for Arya’s sweet sixteen, a party that she reserved the whole lower floor for, shouting at her parents and siblings to stay upstairs in their rooms as she and her friends partied that night. The cake, evidently, wasn’t enough for the size Arya’s party ended up being – her friends from drama club invited the choir, activism club invited the social coordination club, and slam poetry club invited the soccer team, oddly enough. Soccer invited basketball and Jon became furious he was being left out, and begged Arya to be able to join. She agreed – only because he was her favorite sibling. 

So Gendry stood with his basketball team in the kitchen of the house that was practically his, watching his teammates laugh and drink beer that he didn’t even know Arya had supplied. The music was pounding in his ears and Gendry pushed off the wall to find the birthday girl. 

He finally found her surrounded by a gaggle of friends, holding a red solo cup and laughing manically. She threw her head back as some boy he’d never met before told her a joke that was just that hilarious, apparently, and he felt himself bubble with jealousy. It was her birthday though, and he wouldn’t dream of letting his envy get the better of him. So he turned on his heel and walked to the only place he thought might be empty – the bathroom off the game room downstairs. 

He waited there for what felt like forever, sipping on a cheap beer that he could only swallow a few gulps of before dumping it down the drain. His head hurt. He thought Arya would’ve wanted something different for her birthday – a quiet gathering of a few friends, a movie viewing perhaps. He knew he was being selfish thinking that he’d get to sit next to her all night, and that maybe she’d wrap her arm around his waist like she did when she was tipsy sometimes. He’d imagined that maybe he would take her up to her room and tuck her in – she’d be asleep by the time the lights were off. He’d press a kiss to her forehead and she’d never know. But there she was upstairs, probably playing spin-the-bottle with her real friends. 

There was a knock at the door and Gendry stood up from his position on the closed toilet seat. He cautiously opened the door and Arya slipped in, looking not at all tipsy. She had on a tight, spaghetti-strap leopard-print dress which made her look far older than sixteen. He opened his mouth to question her, but she closed the door behind them and beat him to it. 

“Where were you? I looked for ages.” She sounded a little angry. Gendry furrowed his brows. 

“I didn’t think you cared where I was. You seemed preoccupied enough.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean!?” she responded angrily, “is this about me and my friends? God, you’re such a prick.” She walked to the other end of the bathroom and sat on the toilet seat. 

“I-” Gendry tried to respond, but she cut him off. 

“It’s my birthday party, I can hang out with who I’d like, but I knew this would happen. You’d get all jealous that I was with other people and come sulk somewhere. I came to find you because I wanted to be with you, are you happy?” 

He paused. She wanted to be with him. “It doesn’t sound like you want to be with me.” 

Her glare softened and so did her voice. “I do. I always want to be with you. You’re like my best friend.” 

He smiled. He felt like he’d won the Olympics. “You’re my best friend too.” 

“Tell that to Jon, I’d love to see his reaction,” Arya laughed, and stood up. She moved closer to him and Gendry looked at his feet. 

“So, what did people get you for your birthday?” He asked. 

“Normal stuff,” she sighed, “gift cards, books, vinyls. I don’t mean to sound disappointed, but it wasn’t what I really wanted.” 

Gendry frowned. She usually loved books and vinyls. That was sort of Arya’s thing. “What did you really want?” 

She shuffled her feet. They were only a foot or so away. 

“Something from you,” she said quietly. Gendry raised his eyebrows.

“From me?”

“Yeah,” she responded. She seemed embarrassed and he felt bad. 

“What did you want from me?” he asked gently. 

Arya looked up at him. Those eyes he loved so much stared into his with such piercing ferocity that he wasn’t sure he could ever look away. And then she closed them gently, and he awoke from his trance, but by the time he could question her again she’d moved forward and was pressing her lips against his, and they were so soft Gendry could hardly stand it, and suddenly his arms were around her waist and she was flush against him, and her hands were in his hair and he was against the door and they were kissing and kissing for what felt like forever. 

And then he awoke again, and she was his best friends’ baby sister, and he pulled back. She opened those eyes again. 

“Are you drunk?” He asked. He hadn’t meant to ask it so sharply. 

“No. I’ve only had soda.” She looked beyond hurt. She pulled away from him and moved back towards the toilet. He stared across the room at her. 

“What was it you wanted from me?” He asked, “That?” She waited a moment to respond.

“That,” she confirmed. He shook his head. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. 

“It’s okay you don’t feel the same way.” She said softly. A beat. “That was my first kiss. That’s what I wanted. You can hate me now.”

She moved towards the door but he grabbed her hand. 

“I don’t. I could never. You just… surprised me.” She still looked tearful. “Arya I… I do feel the same way.”

She looked up at him suddenly, questioningly. 

“Then why did you stop?” 

“God, I didn’t want to,” He said honestly, “If it were up to me I’d never stop.”

“Isn’t it? Up to you?” Arya asked. “If I agree? And I do.” 

“No,” Gendry said quickly, “Arya, you’re… younger than me. I’m an adult, you’re…”

“A child?” She glared at him. He shook his head.

“Robb and Jon’s baby sister is what you are. I can’t do that to them.”

“This isn’t about them,” Arya snapped, “You don’t owe them anything. You can do whatever you want if you’re such an adult.”

Gendry paused. She continued. “You said it yourself. Two years isn’t much at all.” 

Gendry took her elbows and pulled her close.

“That isn’t it, I’m… I’m going to college soon. I can’t do that to you. Be with you, then leave you. I can’t do it to you, or myself. If we start now… I don’t know how we’ll stop.” 

“Let’s just have tonight,” she whispered, “pretend none of the other bullshit in our lives matters for a second.”

Arya watched his face for an answer. He slowly nodded in agreement. She stared at his lips for a moment and surged forward again, kissing him harder than before. Gendry was ready this time; his hands moved to cup her cheeks and he reciprocated the kiss fiercely. She pulled him back and pushed him onto the toilet seat, where she swung her legs over his to straddle him and licked his bottom lip. He couldn’t believe it was her first kiss, not for a moment. 

“I’ve wanted this for a long time,” Gendry said when they broke apart for a second. She kissed him again and hummed with agreement into his lips. “I just never wanted to take advantage of you.” 

“You’d never do that,” Arya said ferociously, “I want this too.” 

They kissed and kissed, and Gendry wondered how he’d ever enjoyed the feeling of kissing someone else when she tangled her fingers in his hair. His calloused hands reached under her shirt and moved over her soft skin, settling on her hips. 

It felt like they’d been there for hours in this position when someone knocked sharply on the door and Arya’s head snapped up. She glared towards the door.   
“Who is it?” she asked. 

“Jon,” a familiar voice replied. “Have you seen Gendry?”

Gendry buried his face in Arya’s neck to keep from laughing out loud and Arya grinned. 

“Haven’t seen him. Probably off making out with some girl,” her eyes flashed and Gendry stole a kiss before she pulled back and continued, “now can you leave me to take my piss?” 

Jon grumbled and footsteps told the pair that he’d walked away. Arya laughed and settled back in Gendry’s lap, arms around his neck.   
“I can’t wait until you’re older,” Gendry murmured, “we can just… exist. Together.”

Arya looked sad for a moment. “Is this going to ruin something? Can we not still be friends?”

“Of course we’re still friends,” Gendry quickly responded, “best friends.”

“But this has to stop,” she said slowly, “because I’m a child.”

“You aren’t a child, you’re just… younger than me, and Jon and Robb’s little sister, and I’m going to college soon.”

“So you’ll find a nice, pretty college girl the same age as you,” she looked down at her lap and loosened her arms around his neck. 

“Never.” He kissed her again, “I’m just… you deserve someone better than me. Someone who you can see everyday who will take care of you.”

“I don’t need anyone to take care of me,” she protested. Gendry chuckled. 

“I know you don’t. I just mean, there’s a lot that you should have in your first relationship that I can’t give you.” He noticed their position. She was still on his lap; her dress had ridden up onto her hips and to anyone walking in on them his intentions would seem clear. He lifted her off his lap and moved away from her. She glared at his actions. 

“I don’t want all that,” she said fiercely, “I want someone who likes me, and I want to like them too. Not just for that stuff, but as a person. And I like you.”  
Gendry sighed. She wouldn’t ever understand. “I like you too. I know you don’t get it, but it’s just… not the right time.”

Arya climbed off of him. 

“I get it.” She said dully. 

With that, she turned on her heel and walked out of the bathroom. 

 

After that night, Gendry didn’t walk Arya home from school anymore. She wouldn’t let him. He offered, but she’d give him a thin-lipped smile and say she had a club meeting. But on more than one occasion he’d caught her sitting in the back of the auditorium reading, alone, clearly not in any club (unless it was book club, and she was the only member). 

They still spoke, obviously, but things were different. She didn’t like being alone with him and he assumed it was because she was hurt. His heart ached for her, and he couldn’t deny it; he still had to catch his breath when he saw her in a tight top or biting down on her pencil. 

It just wasn’t the same as it was before, especially when she got a boyfriend.  
His name was Ned; he wasn’t particularly tall or handsome but everyone looked tall next to Arya and he wasn’t bad looking. He was nice and funny and kissed Arya’s cheek (a lot – too much, in Gendry’s opinion) even when she scowled at him. She smiled at his jokes but didn’t laugh like she used to at Gendry’s. He saw them kissing once but she didn’t have the fire in her eyes that she’d had when Gendry kissed her. 

Gendry was beyond frustrated. He knew he’d told her to do this, get someone her age, but he couldn’t help but be incredibly jealous that she seemed to genuinely like him. He ate dinner with the Starks and then they would go up to her bedroom to do God knows what, and Gendry would always glare as she took him by the hand and led him upstairs. 

Summer came and went, all the days at the lake a little less fun then Gendry remembered without Arya to hold on his shoulders to play chicken with. He was to attend a University for engineering on full scholarship, only an hour’s drive from the Stark’s house and two hours from Jon’s Uni. 

It was a tearful day when the both of them left. Many hugs were exchanged, last-minute pictures taken. Jon drove off first and his parents both cried as they waved him off. Ned Stark had ordered a car to pick Gendry up and after the final goodbyes, he left their property and stood out on the curb with his luggage to await the vehicle. 

He didn’t notice that Arya had come up beside him until she tapped his shoulder, causing him to jump. 

“Sorry,” she mumbled. 

“It’s okay.” He said. They stood awkwardly for a minute or two. 

“Look Gendry-”

“-I was wrong, okay?” he interrupted. Arya closed her mouth, stunned. “I blew you off too hard, and I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin our friendship. I just… like you so much, and I knew it wouldn’t last if we started before I went off to school. I shouldn’t have let you kiss me and led you on like that. I just… want something that will last, you know? And I want it with you. And it wasn’t the time. I just didn’t explain it well enough, and I’m sorry.” 

The corners of her mouth turned up as she listened to him. “Like? Want?”

“Huh?” he asked, confused by her words. 

“You used the present tense there.” She noted. He chuckled and ran his hand through his dark hair.

“Yes. Because I like you, Arya Stark. And I want you. Present tense.”

She looked back towards the closed gate as if checking to see if someone was watching. 

“I can’t ask you to wait for me-”

“I will,” he insisted. She smiled at him. 

“I broke up with Ned last week,” she said softly, “thought you ought to know.”

Gendry looked down at her. She didn’t look sad or regretful. 

“Oh. I’m sorry.” 

“I’m not,” she said, grabbing onto his wrist, “I’m not sorry I ended it at all. Now I won’t feel guilty.”

“Guilty? Doing what?” 

She stood on the balls of her feet and kissed him. He was quick to lean down to meet her height and held onto her hips tightly as she wrapped her arms around his neck. She smiled against his lips. They tasted just as they had the last time, but this time her touch was softer against him as she took one hand to cup his cheek.   
Faces flushed, they broke apart. 

“I’m going to Orman University,” she told him boldly, “it’s a half hour from your Uni.” 

“But you’re only-” 

“It’s my dream school. Great political science program, tons of clubs. And it’s near you. Besides, I’ll get in. All those clubs I’ve joined? They won’t be able to resist,” she joked, and he grinned at her. 

“I’ll be ready when you come for your visit day,” he said, “We’ll meet up for coffee.”

“Okay. Coffee.” She replied, “it’s a date.”

“Yes, it is,” Gendry confirmed. 

She kissed him again and then they broke apart. He pulled her into a tight hug. 

“Call me when you get there, okay?” she whispered into his ear. 

“Of course,” he responded.

“Promise?” they linked fingers. 

“Promise.”


End file.
